The Storm Maker (34 page)

       “You
sent them expecting them to be taken?” Suka scowled at the Boss.

       “You
never sent soldiers to a battle expecting them to die?” Boss asked.

       Suka
clenched his teeth and kept quiet.

       “Alright,
the time has come,” the Boss turned to his technicians. “Start the Storm
Machine. Keep the eye of the storm on our compound, but spread its fury all
around.”

       The
technicians went to work pushing buttons, dialing knobs, pulling levers,
talking to each other. The display machine lit up and showed a red circle that
a technician moved over the  Coldwoods area to where their compound was
located. He turned a knob to narrow its size till it barely covered the
compound and no more. Then he turned another knob that displayed jagged lines
spreading out from the edge of the circle in all directions. He turned to Boss
who walked over, entered a numerical code and pressed a big button. The
machines on the roof came alive with great buzz and thunder.

Pilot
Pelyett was flying his helicopter low and slowly as Sthykar had told him to do.
It was possible that the rangers had radar and antiaircraft guns. It had
started drizzling and he had turned on the wipers. Sthykar was operating the
radio from behind.

       “Colonel
Jontvyk, Sthykar here,” he said. “What is your position?”

       “We
are all set here, hiding behind trees and bushes just a couple hundred meters
from the gate,” Jontvyk replied. “There are four rangers behind the gate, we
will have to storm them to clear it for you.”

       “Don’t
do that,” Sthykar said. “That would draw more rangers from the barracks and
defeat the purpose of my helicopter raid. We will take care of them; you be
ready to storm the gate just as soon as I use the explosives.”

       “Shall
we move up?” Jontvyk asked.

       “Crawl
up without making any noise,” Sthykar said. “We will be coming in from the side
to avoid being sighted by the rangers. Fortunately the rain will cover the
sound of the rotors.”

       “Do
you think this is the Storm Weapon that you told us about?” Jontvyk asked. “The
sky was clear just a while back and now the rain comes from nowhere. The wind
is also picking up”

       “Could
be,” Sthykar said, “but we are too close to the compound. They won’t be fools
to flood their own place. Alright then.”

       “Alright,”
Jontvyk replied. Jontvyk signaled for the rest of the group to get on their
bellies and start crawling towards the compound gate.

* * *

       Capitan
Haryett’s divisions had already come under fire from the enemy. He had sent out
some troops to cross the road when the Rangers from the hills had opened up on
them and slain a few. Their bodies lay scattered on the road as the rest of
troops pulled back into the woods. The warriors had opened fire on the hills as
well and a long distance firefight had broken out.

       “Capitan
Haryett,” a soldier said. “What do we do with the dead bodies? There will be
cars and trucks coming. Those people will be in danger as well.”

       “Don’t
worry about that,” Haryett replied. “The Supreme Commander has ordered the
police chiefs of towns in the north as well as those in the south to close this
road to all traffic.”

       Haryett
slowly walked up to the trees near to the road where his soldiers were returning
fire. He looked at the hills with his binoculars. Rangers were well hidden, but
still visible. There weren’t that many of them, definitely less than five
hundred, he estimated. If he could get a few hundred soldiers across, he
thought, looking at the map in his hand, he could either close off their
retreat into Coldwoods or force them to run back downhill before his troops
reached the foothills.

       It
had started drizzling. The wind had also picked up. Perhaps this had to do with
that strange storm weapon these villains supposedly had. He picked up his
rifle, walked a safe distance into the woods, climbed on a rock and waved his
rifle.

       “Listen
up,” Haryett said. “The enemy is well positioned on the hills. But our orders
are to cross the road here and we are going to make a mad dash across the road.
Prepare yourself, we go in ten minutes. Capitans and sub-officers meet me
here.”

       He
jumped off the rock as the two other capitans as well as the sub-officers came
running to him.

       “Prepare
your troops,” he said. “As soon as we cross the road, we are going to rush
those rangers.”

       The
capitans and sub-officers dispersed to prepare their troops. Haryett had to
strike a balance here, if he sent them all out in a column formation, they
could get across the road quickly, but that would give sure targets to the
Rangers. Sending them out scattered would give them a chance to avoid getting
hit, but it would take longer. He had positioned his troops as far north as his
orders permitted; they were almost out of the Rangers’ firing range as it was,
and most of the hills were to their south. Still a few bullets would manage to
hit the target, if out of sheer chance alone.

       He
decided to send them out thirty at a time, a few feet apart, with the next
batch of troops four seconds behind. As the troops assembled, they were given
their directions and they stood at attention while Haryett walked up with a
megaphone.

       “No
matter what happens, don’t stop in the middle of the road,” Haryett said.
“Those who are wounded and fall down, turn over and lie on your stomach, put
your bags over your heads, and your rifle over your lower back. The rest of you
keep running; we will come back for the wounded as soon as we have run the
Rangers out of those hills. When you cross, head over to them, there aren’t
that many of them.”

       Capitan
Haryett then walked out of the way of his troops. They all looked tense and
ready with ATR’s in their hands, leaning forward, just waiting for the command.

       “Attack,”
Haryett yelled through the megaphone. “Attack! Attack!”

       The
mad dash began. The Starfirian warriors ran across the six lanes of the road,
jumping over the two-foot divider in the middle. Ranx Rangers opened fire.
Every four seconds more troops ran across, and every time a couple, three or
more got hit, fell down, tumbled over, or sometimes plain died on the spot.
Remaining Starfirians had opened up on the Rangers from the woods to provide
cover but it wasn’t of much utility as the Rangers were well protected behind
the rocks.

       Eight
to ten minutes later, many Starfirians had made it across including a capitan.
He led the warriors straight towards the hills. Yelling, screaming, shouting,
they ran at the hills. The Ranx Rangers realized they had to make it down
before the Starfirians reached there. Their leader gave them an order to pull
out and they rapidly descended from their hills, and started retreating back
towards the compound.

       It
was now safe for the majority of the troops still remaining on the other side
to cross . The capitan who had made it across and his troops ran up the hills
to find the Rangers gone, barely a few minutes before their arrival. He radioed
in their capture of the hills, but Haryett had already guessed from the fact
that the firing from the hills had stopped. All of his troops were crossing
unharmed. He gave orders for the wounded to be taken back to the nearest town
and then crossed the road himself along with the rest of his warriors. As the
last of them crossed over, Haryett looked at the map with satisfaction. The hard
part was over; the rest of the way to Coldwoods was only forest, no place for
the Rangers to dig in. He ordered his warriors to march straight ahead to their
target: Boss Hantex’s compound.

* * *

       “They
just won’t stop coming,” said a Ranger positioned flat on the ridge next to
Corporal Montex said.

       “And
the damn rain won’t stop either,” opined another Ranger on the other side of
Montex as he fired his gun down the hill.

       “Boys,
that’s our storm weapon,” Montex said. “At least I hope so.” He chuckled and the
other Rangers nearby guffawed. Montex had never seriously believed the idea of
a machine that could create storms and hurricanes. It sounded like the magic
that people thousands of years ago believed in; like gods who allegedly threw
lightning bolts and worked up a fury of wind and water. He doubted that most of
the Rangers believed it either; they were loyal soldiers and were following
orders. For a great many Rangers, stirring up trouble in Starfire Nation was
itself the prize. Starfirians had the reputation for having one of the best
land armies in the world and fighting them was adding a patch of honor to one’s
shoulder. However, it was also a great pain to fight them, and the first Ranger
was right—the Starfirian troops kept charging up the hill. The Ranger fire was
taking down more than a few of them, but they kept coming and coming, taking
cover behind trees, retaliating with deadly accurate gunfire. If this was
Starfire Nation’s reserve army, he did not want to think how much more
determined and aggressive it’s regular and elite armies would be.

       Montex
unloaded another magazine as the enemy soldiers had come almost half the
distance up the hill. The rest of the way would be harder for them now as the
trees had thinned out, but the Ranxian Rangers had to prepare for a retreat as
well. If they didn’t do so in time, they would have the unpleasant task of
retreating downhill while their enemy had the high ground. Montex put his back
to the rocks and fumbled for another magazine, but he had run out. He ordered a
soldier to throw him a half dozen more magazines and he checked them for
bullets.

       Montex
had been chosen for this mission because he was known as an early supporter of
the Ranx Rejuvenation Party. He was a party loyalist and Boss Hantex wanted just
such a person. He would be honest and acknowledge that there were at least four
corporals and capitans in Ranx Rangers that were better than him; he wasn’t the
second best after Suka Manx. But he was the only one with the party card for
RRP. He had joined this party because he wanted Ranx to try to become a great
power, although he didn’t care much for the history or about the Sanguine
Empire. He had found the idea of a storm machine laughable when he had first
heard it. He had, however, agreed to participate in this project because if
there was even a remote chance of this working, he wouldn’t want to miss the
historical event.

       Corporal
Montex unloaded a couple more magazines, but their enemy just kept charging up
the hill. His troops were now getting massive incoming fire and the bullets
were ricocheting all around the Rangers. He was secure behind a big rock, but
the other Rangers were not so lucky. He could see them getting hit more and
more often and hear their screams. It was time to pull back.

       “Retreat
to the next hill,” Montex yelled and he shouted a couple more times. A few
Rangers stayed back to cover their retreat, the rest rolled down and headed
south to the hill behind.

       Soon
thereafter Capitan Duftar’s warriors took the tallest ridge from the Ranx
Rangers and they were jubilant reaching the top. Here on out, they would have
an easier time pushing back the Rangers, rolling them up, using the high ground
behind them to provide cover fire. Capitan Duftar lit up a cigarette and
radioed in his first victory to Colonel Weltar.

* * *

       The
shootout broke out at the creek just as Capitan Jolvyt had predicted. His three
thousand troops were stopped by the three hundred Ranx Rangers from the other
side. The trees and vegetation were very dense; the soldiers were almost
invisible behind the stumps of the trees and were firing their rifles over the
creek at each other. Mostly the rifle barrels stuck out from behind the trees
on each side. Capitan Jolvyt had lined up his soldiers from one end to the other
and they had opened up on full automatic, but to no avail so far. The Rangers
had positioned themselves well.

       Jolvyt
called over a few soldiers. “Find me the narrowest crossing point of the
creek,” he ordered. The rain and wind had picked up and he did not want to wait
long as the higher the creek got, the longer it would take his soldiers to
cross, incurring more casualties.

       Ten
minutes later the soldiers came back and informed him about potential crossing
points.

       “One
a few hundred feet to the south is around sixteen feet wide,” one of them said.

       “I
saw one that is around seventeen to eighteen up north,” another one said.

       Finally
Jolvyt decided to make the crossing at the southern point where the creek was
only sixteen feet wide. He assembled his capitans and the sub-officers and
pointed to a spot on the map.

       “Roughly
here we are going to cross,” Jolvyt said. “Leave about a thousand troops all
around the front to keep firing. We don’t want to give them an indication of
our intentions to cross. Assemble the other two thousand troops there.”

       They
hurried back and the troops assembled just behind the trees at the crossover
point. The trees covered their hustle and bustle. Capitan Jolvyt stood in front
an addressed them. He did not use a megaphone because he did not want the
Rangers to get even a whisper of what was going on.

       “Keep
your heads down, run as fast as you can and fan out both ways when you reach
the other side,” Capitan Jolvyt said to the troops in front. His message was
passed back. He got out of their way and gave the order to charge.

       Suddenly
to the Ranxians surprise, a massive number of Starfirian troops poured out from
behind the trees, jumped three feet down into the creek, splashed into the
water that was roughly two feet deep, and ran to the other side firing their
ATR rifles. Rangers were able to stop the first few waves, but more and more
poured out from more and more trees fanning across the creek. Starfirians
staying behind came out from hiding and fired their rifles to support the troops
crossing the creek. The creek ran red with blood, but eventually at one place a
few Starfirians managed to reach ground on the other side. They quickly
established a position there and rest of the Starfirians crossed behind them.
Now the Rangers were on the defensive and as more and more Starfirians crossed
over, they started to pull back. Soon all of them had pulled out and beat a
hasty retreat back towards Coldwoods with the Starfirian warriors in hot
pursuit. The storm overhead picked up strength by the minute.